Almost two weeks after the negotiations started. After the captains of the professional sections of the Palau also gave their approval to the sale. And also after the leaders of Barcelona warned the footballers that they would make effective the temporary employment regulation file (ERTE) there was or was no agreement.

This Monday, finally, the first team players, led by Leo Messi, appeared. And they did it to signal the leaders, to assume the 70% salary reduction per day of confinement demanded by the entity in its ERTE, and also to ensure that the team will make additional contributions to ensure that the rest of the non-professional employees affected by the measures charge 100% of your salary.

Messi and several of his colleagues agreed to use their Instagram accounts to settle the matter through a statement in which they tried to write the word "always" in capital letters when he referred to the altruism of the players: "We are the first to We have ALWAYS helped the club when asked. " A version that contrasts with that of the Barça executives and senior executives, who had to exert extreme pressure to reach an entente in the face of the collapse in income due to the coronavirus crisis.

"It never ceases to amaze us that from within the club there were those who tried to put us under the magnifying glass and tried to add pressure to do something that we always knew we would do," the footballers accused. The captains (Messi, Busquets, Piqué and Sergi Roberto) have negotiated in recent days by videoconference with the Barça president, Josep Maria Bartomeu. And they continue: "In fact, if the agreement has been delayed for a few days it is simply because we were looking for a formula to help the club and also its workers in these difficult times."

The employees referred to by Leo Messi, non-professionals, will also be affected by an ERTE, although in their case due to production causes (that of the athletes is due to force majeure), which requires negotiation with the unions. . These workers, in addition, had shown their concern in recent days in their meetings before the prolonged silence of the footballers of the first team of Barcelona. In fact, the FC Barcelona Company Committee, in an internal statement, has already warned that its group represents 3.7% of the entity's expenses, for 61% of the athletes.

"Apart from the reduction of 70% of our salary during the State of Alarm, we will also make contributions so that the club's employees can collect 100% of their salary while this situation lasts," the footballers announced. to justify himself: "If we did not speak until now it was because the priority for us was to find solutions that were real to help the club, but also to those who were most affected by this situation."

The cut that the Barcelona first team has accepted, the same that will be assumed by the rest of the club's professional athletes, consists of 70% of the daily salary; which is equivalent, per month of confinement, to 5.5% of the annual gross salary. Of course, without including bonuses or bonuses. Said measure has retroactive effect, so it is activated from March 14, the day the State of Alarm was decreed, and will end when the confinement is concluded.

The Barça club, in a statement sent to the media just after the fact by the members of the first team, assured that the reduction to the players "will be more than 70%." It actually refers to that additional contribution that, together with that made by the entity, will guarantee 100% of the salary of all non-sports personnel.

According to the criteria of The Trust Project

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